He stood perfectly still, looking at her for several seconds, and then went quietly away. She, left all alone, wept on in the silence, before the pins scattered over the dressing-table and the floor. When Mouret returned to the little drawing-room, he found Vallagnosc alone, the baron having gone back to the ladies. As he still felt very agitated, he sat down at the further end of the apartment, on a sofa; and his friend on seeing him so faint charitably came and stood before him, to conceal him from curious eyes. At first, they looked at each other without saying a word. Then, Vallagnosc, who seemed to be inwardly amused by Mouret's emotion, finished by asking in his bantering voice: "Are you enjoying yourself?" Mouret did not appear to understand him at first. But when he remembered their former conversations on the empty stupidity and useless torture of life, he replied: "Of course, I've never before lived so much. Ah! my boy, don't you laugh, the hours that make one die of grief are by far the shortest!" Then he lowered his voice and continued gaily, beneath his half-dried tears: "Yes, you know all, don't you? Between them they have rent my heart. But yet the wounds they make are nice, almost as nice as kisses. I am thoroughly exhausted but, no matter, you can't think how I love life! Oh! I shall win her at last, that little girl who still says no!" But Vallagnosc once more trotted out his pessimism. What was the good of working so much if money could not procure everything? He would precious soon have shut up shop and have given up work on the day he found that his millions could not even win him the woman he loved! Mouret, as he listened became grave. But all at once he protested violently, believing as he did in the all-powerfulness of his will. "I love her, and I'll win her!" said he. "But even if she escapes me, you'll see what a place I shall build to cure myself. It will be splendid, all the same. You don't understand this language, old man, otherwise you would know that action contains its own recompense. To act, to create, to struggle against facts, to overcome them or be overthrown by them, all human health and joy consists in that!" "A mere way of diverting one's self," murmured the other. "Well! I prefer diverting myself. As one must die, I would rather die of passion than boredom!"